SDA: European Commission Report Confirmed Failure of BiH Authorities, We Call for Continuous Sessions of the Council of Ministers and Parliament

(Patria) - The European Commission's report for Bosnia and Herzegovina unequivocally showed that the current authorities have failed to ensure the necessary progress in meeting the conditions on the European path that would bring our country a recommendation to open membership negotiations. Instead, it was once again stated that a number of criteria, aligned with the EU membership application defined in the European Commission's Opinion on 14 priorities, need to be met to open negotiations.

Following such a Report, all the stories intended for the BiH public about alleged "successes of compromise policy", "unprecedented progress on the EU path", and "historic sessions" are rendered invalid, the SDA announced.

"On the other hand, the European Commission's Report is, to put it mildly, contradictory. It assesses the rapid formation of government at the state level, which includes Milorad Dodik's SNSD, as progress, and then dedicates a significant part of the Report to Milorad Dodik's policy, which is defined as the biggest problem and obstruction to the country's progress towards the EU. So what is commendable about the rapid formation of a government that consciously does not want to fulfill the obligations for opening negotiations? At the same time, the EU refuses to impose sanctions on Dodik, such as those already imposed by the US and the UK.

The Report's finding that "the new government of the Federation entity, led by SDP leader Nermin Nikšić, was appointed at the end of April, after the High Representative suspended the Constitution of the Federation entity to enable it" is also significant.

The European Commission acknowledges that the international factor played a decisive role in the formation of a government that failed to ensure sufficient progress on the EU path. This underscores their responsibility for the clearly failed concept.

The worrying message is that BiH did not receive an unconditional recommendation to open negotiations along with Ukraine and Moldova, countries with which we received candidate status as a package. Excluding BiH from this package could have additional negative consequences.

A glimmer of hope is the possibility that BiH will meet some of the criteria by the next session of the European Council, which would lead to a positive decision. Instead of trying to cover up failure with spins and linguistic acrobatics, we call on the current authorities to use the time until the European Council session for continuous sessions of the Council of Ministers and both houses of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH, in order to do everything necessary to meet the conditions that will enable BiH to open negotiations.

The SDA is firmly committed to BiH's Euro-Atlantic path and will always support all solutions that meet European standards," it was announced.